One by one the GIs and Filipino guerrillas began to peel away and return to the alley, which turned out to be their best escape route, giving them cover from the Japanese onslaught. First, they had to pass the bodies of the dead enemy that had been torn by the grenades, then climb the tumbled brick wall, all the while coming under direct enemy fire. Bullet strikes raised puffs of brick dust the color of blood. One of the Filipino fighters was dead, and they left his body behind. Juana and Rodeo were on either side of the wounded Filipino fighter, half carrying and half pushing him up and over the rubble wall.
Soon only the lieutenant and Deke were remaining. The Japanese kept coming, bullets flying at them as the enemy fire increased.
Two of the enemy got close enough to launch their own version of a banzai charge, howling with rage as they screamed toward the two Americans. They were so close that Deke could see how their faces were twisted into contorted, angry masks.
Deke shot one. Beside him, Honcho’s 12-gauge boomed and the second attacker flew back as a handful of buckshot hit him.
There were more Japanese coming behind them. Honcho racked another shell into the chamber and fired.
The enemy continued their advance relentlessly, firing indiscriminately. The zip of Japanese lead cut through the air. Deke hunkered down behind debris and tried to steady his breathing as he took aim at an approaching soldier. He squeezed the trigger just as a nearby explosion rocked the ground beneath him. The damn Japs had thrown a grenade.
His shot went wide, the bullet whizzing past the Japanese soldier’s head.
Honcho grabbed Deke’s shoulder and shoved him toward the wall.
“Deke! We need to get out of here!”
Finally, with a heavy heart, Deke turned and started scrambling up the brick wall. The lieutenant struggled up the half-demolished wall behind him. Deke might have stayed, but he knew that Honcho wouldn’t go without him.
At the top of the wall, Philly had taken up a position to offer suppressing fire with his rifle, not that it seemed to be slowing down the Japanese. Juana was up there, too, firing, working her rifle bolt, then firing again.
Deke tried not to feel like a scared rabbit or a kicked dog running with his tail between his legs. The Japanese jeered at them as they fell back, taunting them with shouts of victory.
Deke gritted his teeth and kept moving. People talked about defeat having a taste, something bitter, and they’d be right. He could taste it now, like something he’d bitten into that was spoiled and rotten. He spat. A split second later, a bullet hit the same brick that his spit had struck.
Then he was up and over the wall.
As they regrouped farther away from the Japanese, Lieutenant Steele barked orders for them to establish a new defensive position. They set up behind some partially destroyed walls, using whatever cover they could find in the rubble-strewn streets.
They braced themselves, ready for it, expecting the Japanese to come over the remnants of the wall and pour down into the alley. A grenade flew over the wall, then another, the Japanese returning the earlier favor. The blasts echoed ruthlessly between the alley walls, shrapnel shrieking. By some miracle, nobody was hurt.
But no soldiers followed. For whatever reason, the Japanese had decided to break off the attack. Maybe, in their minds, a handful of Americans just weren’t worth the effort. They had bigger fish to fry.
Lieutenant Steele stood up. He had taken shelter behind a miniature landslide that seemed to be made up primarily of broken doors and garbage cans. Something dark, foul-smelling, and wet clung to the knees of his fatigues.
“All right, show’s over,” he announced. “Let’s get the hell out of here and find some shelter for the night. Those Japanese will be on the prowl.”
If the Japanese had broken off their attack against the Americans, it was only because they had easier targets to occupy their attention.
Major Tanigawa and his men moved out, but not before Sergeant Inaba asked, “What about the American soldiers?”
“Never mind the Yanks,” Tanigawa said. “If they return, we shall teach them another lesson.”
For the Japanese, teaching that lesson had come at a cost. Inaba did not point out that Tanigawa was stepping around the bodies of the men slain by grenades. He had been fortunate in being out of range, although some of his patrol had not shared that good luck.
A few more bodies lay scattered in the rubble, killed in the melee with the Americans. Ultimately, they had been driven off.
Inaba thought that was too bad. He had wanted another crack at the sniper, the one with the scars on his face. But it was not to be. No matter — they had sent the Americans running like beaten dogs.
